My Beauty Best Teacher

Before we visit the best posts of 2011, let's all take a moment to reflect back on some of my best posts from last year, 2010, and see how the analysis, predictions, and theories that I advanced in those posts have held up over the past year.

Obama: Didn't Waive the Jones Act, Made Gulf Spill Worse:
Occasionally I break a major story, like this one, which I was on well in advance of the MSM. Here was the story that I broke in 2010:

In reply to the emails from snarky liberals who ask 'just what do I expect Obama to do about the Gulf oil spill', the reply is 'get the hell out of the way'...Let loose the power of free markets and civil society and restrict government to limited and defined roles, and the world will be a better place. In this particular case, just 'what can Obama do'? Here is one of dozens of examples that are specific and have few drawbacks but Obama isn't doing- Obama can temporarily waive the Jones Act....

In retrospect, it is clear that Obama did have a reverse-Midas touch with the Gulf Oil spill- every move he made or didn't make during this disaster was the wrong one. From not temporarily waiving the Jones Act (which effectively forbid foreign nations from assisting the US by banning ships flagged, crewed, constructed, or owned by other nations from transporting cargo from one US port to another US port) to overstating the extent of the disaster (his talking about it caused a larger drop in tourism to the entire Gulf region than the actual disaster did), we can see in the Gulf oil spill just how aimless and unhelpful President Obama is when America faces an immediate crisis, and this post was yet more support to that argument.

Obama Nicknames
Every President has a nickname- Reagan was the Gipper, Bush was W, Clinton was Slick Willy, Thomas Jefferson was Long Tom, Chester Arthur was the Walrus, Calvin Coolidge was Cool Cal- so in this post I decided to pull together some of the top Obama nicknames that I have seen or heard. It's a good and solid list, and I've added to it over the past year (2011). My personal nickname for Obama: Waffles the Clown.

Oppose Race to the Top: Reasons Why Conservatives Should Oppose RTTT
This post was one of my 'thinking posts', where I was asked a question that I should have considered before but hadn't, and I went home and really thought through my views and beliefs and arrived at an answer. My instinct was always to oppose Race to the Top, which was President Obama's major education initiative, but I wanted to make sure that I was opposing it for the right reasons- not because the NEA was against it or because Obama came up with it, but because it violated conservative principles. Read the whole post, but here is a bit of it...

Recently, Michigan Senate Majority leader Mike Bishop asked me for my opinion on the President's Race to the Top program. I told him that I didn't support it, and he looked at me in a way that said "I thought you were a conservative" and "I thought you wanted to help education." At the time, I struggled to explain why I didn't like the program- I didn't really know all the details to it, but suspected that I was indeed correct in opposing it from what little I knew. He thought I was just a tool of the teachers unions, who also oppose RTTT, but I knew that for some reason I didn't like this initiative by Obama, and it wasn't just paranoid anti-Obama sentiment.... Today, via theblogprof, via Right Wing News, I came across the an article called "Ten Rules for Anti-Government Republican Radicals in D.C. ." As an anti-government conservative radical, the kind that our founding fathers were, the kind of people that built our nation and made our country a great success, I find these rules to be useful in helping me begin to articulate why I oppose Race to the Top....

Since I put together this post, I've gone on the radio multiple times in a variety of shows to talk about a true conservative approach to education, one that emphasizes decentralization of power, local control, less federal spending, regular and measured policies, structural changes, the humanity of the system, the lessening of federal laws, and the passage of good solid legislation. A good conservative believes 'first, do no harm' and 'less is more' and that the purpose of the state is to protect life, liberty, and property, and Race to the Top is not legislation that a conservative should support, even though it attacked the NEA and labor unions and put in place small good changes to the system. Read my whole post and you'll see yet another reason why thinking individuals should be opposing Obama in 2012.

Obama's New NASA Policy- Yet More Broken Promises and Lies
American Exceptionalism is being killed by Obama, in ways big and small. Once America was a great nation that put men on the moon- an exceptional nation capable of spaceflight and exploring new worlds. Now...:

Out of all of the broken promises of President Obama, this one is probably not the biggest to a lot of people. Out of all of the phony and lying rhetoric about hope and change, this latest policy announcement that kills hope and changes things for the worst is probably not the most backstabbing that he has uttered. But that does not mean that Obama's plans to destroy NASA's budget and redirect its mission away from exploration is not big or important to me....

Obama's attack on NASA didn't stop in 2010 as he continued to oppose its vision of boldly exploring new worlds and demonstrating America's amazing exceptionalism. I revisited this theme several times in 2011, notably in my posts Nuclear Power and Manned Space Flight: Victims of Democrat's Progress Backwards? and Obama Killed My Child's Dream of Being an Astronaut.  Obama and the Democrats will not be happy until America is an average nation that has fallen back into the pack of tyranny and debt that is the history of the world, and their policies towards NASA are an example of this.

Recommended Read: Codevilla's 'America's Ruling Class'
This post was an attempt to get people to read one of the most important essay's of 2010- Codevilla's essay America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution that was published in the American Spectator.

...it lays out quite clearly the two classes that are evolving in our nation- what Codevilla calls the 'ruling class' and the 'country class.' Codevilla echo's what I tell my students every year- it is getting increasingly important to understand how the ruling class in our society works and how they use government to maintain their ruling status, because our society is increasingly about what the government does and less so about what you do...

Revisiting this essay today, you can clearly see the increasingly divide in America between those people who are benefiting from government connections and those who are not, increased by the policies pushed by the modern-day Democratic party and to a lesser although still significant extent the Republican Party. Solyndra is a great example of this- a company that found favor in the ruling class was able to secure loans and help while other companies not favored by the ruling class had money taken from them in the form of taxes and regulations and fees and permits. The massive expansion in food stamps or the massive expansion of taxpayer subsidized healthcare are also great examples of how the ruling class is increasingly looting all of us in order to give gifts and trinkets to the country class as our nation descends into tyranny.

This is my second post on Codevilla, and I am going to have to make it a point to read more of what he writes because it is becoming clear that The Mackinac Center recently said, Angelo M. Codevilla might be our era's Thomas Paine. Like Paine, Codevilla's works make a lot of things that people intuitively know and feel now clear and boldly stated in plain English. His articles are body-blows to the lies of the world- they give voice and focus to the reality of the situation. He names the unnamed.

His earlier article was about America's Ruling Class, a powerful theme that went a long way towards explaining what is happening in our nation. My post on it was Recommended Read: Codevilla's 'America's Ruling Class', and in it I could do no more than point readers toward his brilliant essay America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution that was recently in the American Spectator. If you haven't read it yet, please do so at some point.

Today, via Belmont Club, I came across another of Codevilla's essay's, and it also blew my socks off. Angelo de Codevilla recently reviewed the six accounts of Barack Obama’s life for the Claremont Review of Books, and he ends up with the conclusion that Obama was always something other than what he portrayed himself to be. What that is, in Codevilla’s summary, is this:

In sum, Barack Obama grew intertwined with the narrow, self-referential left side of the American Left. They helped one another believe they had come up the hard way, as underprivileged but brilliant, square-jawed tribunes of the common man. Their common problem, however, is that their agendas are antagonistic to people unlike themselves, and that they cannot keep from showing their contempt for the common folk in whose name they would ride to power.

Since the days of Karl Marx’s First International a century and a half ago, this very human opposition between socialist theory (egalitarianism) and socialist reality (oligarchic oppression) has bedeviled the Left. Marx laid the problem bare in his “Critique of the Gotha Program” (1875). Lenin dealt with it honestly and brutally in What Is to Be Done? (1902)—the foundational document of Communism. By acknowledging that the Communist Party is not the common people’s representative, but rather its “vanguard,” Leninists were comfortable with a party responsible only to itself and to history, a party that openly demanded deference from the humans whose habits it forcibly reshaped. Communism’s undeniable horrors forced the New Left to disassociate itself from What Is to Be Done? and once again to pretend that its socialism was neither oligarchic nor coercive, that somehow it was on the side of ordinary folks. This is a much tougher sell in the 21st century than it was in the 19th. Contemporary socialists try to explain away the common man’s suspicion of them as harbingers of oligarchy, corruption, and coercion by resorting to jargon (e.g., “false consciousness” and “socio-economic anxiety”). But that is ever less convincing. This is why the movement argues so strenuously with itself about whether and how much it should dissimulate its agenda.

Which is one reason why it plays the “race card” and seizes on recruits like Barack Obama: because many black Americans’ ancestors were slaves, must not any black American be, ipso facto, unquestionably, a member and true representative of the downtrodden? And if a skeptic should argue that this or that black man is really a representative of old, white, nasty socialism, of the Corporate State, of upscale parasites who prey on working people, it is easy enough to re-focus the argument on the skeptic’s “racism.” If blacks inclined to play this role did not exist, the Socialist movement would have every incentive to invent them. And in a sense it tries to invent them, through the “black studies” programs that now divert so many young Americans from useful lives into partisan service.

Obama is as close as one could imagine to a made-to-order front man for contemporary, upscale, shy-about-itself, nouveau socialism. From his earliest age, he shaped his dreams about himself to act out a character wholly fictitious, namely a black American from a humble background who rose up out of brilliance and merit, and who yearns to draw all of America’s low-born (plus the rest of mankind) up through the same paths. But he is none of that. Equally imaginary is his vaunted understanding of and sympathy for foreign cultures. A typical multiculturalist, Obama speaks no language other than a peculiar version of English. His native language, loves, and hates are common to some of the most leftist elements of the current American ruling class.

That class knows about America only that it must be changed, and looks at the vast majority of Americans the way carpenters look at warped pieces of lumber. Barack Obama is neither more nor less than its product and agent.

Angelo Codevilla is the author of The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It and The Character of Nations: How Politics Makes and Breaks Prosperity, Family, and Civility.

If you haven't gotten a chance yet to read the essay America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution that was recently in the American Spectator, you should do so. It is long (took me about 5-10 minutes to read through it), but very well done. What I do like about the essay is that it lays out quite clearly the two classes that are evolving in our nation- what Codevilla calls the 'ruling class' and the 'country class.' Codevilla echo's what I tell my students every year- it is getting increasingly important to understand how the ruling class in our society works and how they use government to maintain their ruling status, because our society is increasingly about what the government does and less so about what you do. Oh, I also enjoyed how Codevilla explained how we have gotten to this state.  What I didn't like about the essay is the end of it- although Codevilla identifies the problem and describes it exactly, he does not lay out a remedy for the problem. He writes about how some time in the future a third party should be created, but as I have written about before, that's not a realistic option (see my posts US Has Two Party System- Deal With It and Vote Republican and Libertarians Screwed Themselves Again by Not-Voting or Voting Libertarian).

Please take some time though to read the full essay- it is one of the most inspiring and inspired pieces of commentary that I have read in some time.

UPDATE: I've already picked up on some of this when I noticed that the The New Counter Culture in today's youth is Liberty:

So what then is the new counter culture? It is those people who love liberty and freedom- the new counter-culture are those people who have been raised on the soaring rhetoric of the Bible and the Declaration of Independence- the new rebels are the old rebels once again, those who fight against tyranny and oppression again.

In college, one of the classes that I didn't like was a class called "Political Economy." The class was an attempt to indoctrinate students with the ideas that the market economy could be controlled, and teach us political science students the phony tools for 'controlling' the market and taming it to the whims of politicians. Class after class I got into an argument with my professor, claiming that the class was a sham, that you can't 'tame' or 'control' the market, only distort it for gain by favored classes. I argued over and over that a political economy was an un-American economy, and was a nice way of saying 'a socialist economy.'

The last day of class, my professor's true colors did come out- our final exam question was "Describe the one form of government that can solve all the worlds economic, environmental, and social class problems." Since I wanted to pass the class (my professor disagreed with me all year so gave me a failing grade on every paper), I wrote a brilliant glowing essay on the joys of communism- good old fashioned Lenin communism- and got an "A" (4.0). I hated that class, and everything it represented.

Today from Charles Krauthammer, who writes for the Washington Post, comes this article called "Come to grips with politicized economy." Here is what he wrote:

In the old days -- from the Venetian Republic to, oh, the Bear Stearns rescue -- if you wanted to get rich, you did it the Warren Buffett way: You learned to read balance sheets. Today you learn to read political tea leaves. You don't anticipate Intel's third-quarter earnings; instead, you guess what side of the bed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson will wake up on tomorrow.

Today's extreme stock market volatility is not just a symptom of fear -- fear cannot account for days of wild market swings upward -- but a reaction to meta-economic events: political decisions that have vast economic effects.

As economist Irwin Stelzer argues, we have gone from a market economy to a political economy.

In the rest of his article, he talks about how the words of politicians now change the market, more so than supply or demand, profits or losses, or a healthy bottom line. Here is his conclusion:

We may one day go back to a market economy. Meanwhile, we need to face the two most important implications of our newly politicized economy: the vastly increased importance of lobbying and the massive market inefficiencies that political directives will introduce.

Lobbying used to be about advantages at the margin -- a regulatory break here, a subsidy there. Now lobbying is about life and death. Your lending institution or industry gets a bailout -- or it dies.

You used to go to New York for capital. Now Wall Street, broke, is coming to Washington. With unimaginably large sums of money being given out by Washington,
the Obama administration, through no fault of its own, will be subject to the most intense, most frenzied lobbying in American history. That will introduce one kind of economic distortion. The other kind will come from the political directives issued by newly empowered politicians.

First, bank presidents are gravely warned by one senator after another about "hoarding" their bailout money. But hoarding is another word for recapitalizing to shore up your balance sheet to ensure solvency. Is that not the fiduciary responsibility of bank directors? And isn't pushing money out the window with too little capital precisely the lending laxity that produced this crisis in the first place? Never mind. The banks will knuckle under to the commissars of Capitol Hill. They control the purse. Prudence will yield to politics.

Even more egregious will be the directives to a nationalized Detroit. Sen. Charles Schumer, the noted automotive engineer, declared "unacceptable" last week "a business model based on gas." Instead, "We need a business model based on cars of the future, and we already know what that future is: the plug-in hybrid electric car."

The Chevy Volt, for example? It has huge remaining technological hurdles, gets 40 miles on a charge and will sell for about $40,000, necessitating a $7,500 outright government subsidy. Who but the rich and politically correct will choose that over a $12,000 gas-powered Hyundai? The new Detroit churning out Schumer-mobiles will make the steel mills of the Soviet Union look the model of efficiency.

The ruling Democrats have a choice: Rescue this economy to return it to market control. Or use this crisis to seize the commanding heights of the economy for the greater social good. Note: The latter has already been tried. The results are filed under "History, ash heap of."

My prediction- the ruling Democrats, who control us slaves of the state, will distort the market in the name of the 'social good' and create a country that is inefficient, where houses are more expensive and yet worse less, where companies do poorly and their stocks suffer, where banks go under with political pressure, where services suffer, and goods are more expensive and lower quality. In the name of the greater social good, Democrats will take away our liberty and make our nation a poorer place in which to live- in every meaningful way.

Chippla writes "...How could Nigerian society have evolved in such a way that those who legislate in it receive such treatment that well grounded medical doctors, engineers and professors could only dream of? Could this really be called a democracy? One goes to elect someone who ends up living the life of a plutocrat amidst want and squalor so prevalent in society...This crisis of Nigerian society lies in the fact that its ruling class sees no reason why it shouldn't live like the ruling class anywhere else in the world. The truth however is that Nigeria is not like 'anywhere else in the world' – it is a poor developing country with a pathetically low per capita income..."

Babatunde Ahonsi in 234Next writes about Nigeria's defective middle class:

Too many of its members are bogged down with devising and pursuing private or individual solutions to macro and collective problems. The resultant strong sense of insecurity about its future well-being is therefore undermining its capacity to think trough what it needs to do to address the root causes of the situation. It is a class that seems to be unable to see that it is in its medium-to-long term interest to begin to collectively work for the building up of sustained pressure on the ruling class for the enthronement of good governance.

More here.

Edward B. Rackley writes in 3quarksdaily:

The nature of governance in these ex-colonies attests to the abiding power of the self-serving instinct and immediate gain, over and against the long-term goal of national progress. Such is the confounding irony of Africa’s entire post-colonial era in nations previously occupied by France, Britain, Portugal and Belgium alike: why is the colonial, predatory model of governance so faithfully re-enacted by ruling African elites? It’s as if all that negative conditioning only succeeded in instilling a predatory instinct in the new ruling class. Why are Mandela-style visions for collective prosperity not more common, given the shared experience of subjugation and occupation across the continent?

One of the great things about teaching social studies is helping students to make connections between things that they are learning about and the world around them. In my classes, it isn't just 'economics,' 'us history,' 'world history,' or 'government'- it is how their knowledge of economics, history, or political science can help them better understand the world around them and make better choices with their lives.

For example, another teacher friend of mine just gave this article to her students and had them read it, and I think it is a great example of good teaching. Sadly, I don't teach world history this year, so I can't use it, but what this teacher did is give her students the following article and have them discuss it. The article is called U.S. Decline, Sloth Look a Lot Like End of Rome and makes connections between the end of Rome and the fall of the United States.

Is the United States falling apart like Rome? I happen to think that there are some similarities, but that since the US is exceptional and different it can still be saved, but the point is, it doesn't matter what I think- the goal of the exercise is to get students thinking and have them start realizing that it is important to learn about the fall of Rome because it may provide lessons for our nation, real lessons about what types of politicians to elect into office, what types of policies to lobby in support of, what types of ballot resolutions to vote down, or what types of investments to put their hard-earned money into. The fall of Rome teaches us, and teaches students, and we need to learn from the wisdom of the past, and once students get that, once they understand that, it opens up a whole new world to them.

U.S. Decline, Sloth Look a Lot Like End of Rome is the article that that other teacher used in her classroom- if you are a teacher, you may also want to use it, and then afterwards pose questions to your students that asks them about the history of Rome, the recent policy decisions in the US, how those might be similar or different, and if the results will be similar or different. Enjoy the fun discussion that results and watch the learning occur!

This isn't the whole thing- I recommend you read the whole thing- but here are a couple teasers from it:

Historians cite the late second century as the turning point of the Roman Empire, when the once- proud, feared society began its descent into infamy. As the ruling class was undermined by civil wars and attacks by outsiders, the Romans’ respect for law and social institutions began to erode. In the end, a combination of political and economic mistakes led to the empire’s downfall.

The U.S. today is a mirror image of the Roman Empire as it tipped into chaos. Whether we blame our bloated government, a greedy elite or a lethargic population, the similarities between the two foreshadow a gruesome future.

The Roman economy grew fat from the plunder of conquered territories and the added productivity offered by new lands. The waning of expansionism didn’t bode well for the empire.

While the U.S. ascended quite differently, it also used its position as a superpower to fuel economic expansion. Because the country had the strongest military and economy in the post-World War II era, the U.S. dollar became the de facto global reserve currency, ensuring endless competitive advantages -- which have vanished in the last decade.

Americans have become less productive while relying more on social safety-net programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security -- and now expanded health-care insurance. Worse, like the ancient Romans, a sense of entitlement has replaced the drive and motivation we once championed. With easy access to abundant government handouts, it’s no wonder so many jobless people have stopped looking for work....

Over at American Spectator, there is a good article on why we should not be looking forward to the collapse of America and the chaos that will ensue. I know some of my friends think the revolution will be good for our country- but everyone knows that most revolutions end up poorly, so I'd still rather work my tail off to save this country then let it go down in flames by personally doing nothing or voting third-party.

At Belmont Club, speculation into the future collapse of America stems from discussions on the financial crisis. It's a good entry in this good blog, because it makes the case that our current system is not designed to hold up to a systematic collapse due to the interconnectedness of our society today. I agree- although, I think the one connecting feature of the world is America, so other countries better realize this and step up to save us from ourselves, because if we go down, we're taking the world with us.

Over at Commentary, another angle is explored- that of Russia. This is a good analysis of what Russia is up to- the basic point of it is that we should not analyze Russia using our models of world superpowers, but rather look at how Russia has been increasing its ties to nations that oppose our policies at a regional or local level. This is the real threat to us- not that we'll engage in a Cold War Part 2, but that states like Venezuela, Iran, and Syria will foster terrorism and conflict with Russia's support.

Dirty Harry, in this post, points to another sign that the end may be coming- apparently, using money raised by terrorist Bill Ayers through his organization Annenberg Challenge (which Barack Obama headed up from 1995 to 1999 and helped raise over a $100 million for), the city of Chicago has decided that gays and lesbians should be segregated into their own special school, where they will learn a different version of history and be taught differently than others. I predict that this will only lead to falling grades and opportunities for these students, but after all, that's really what socialists want- a ruling class and rulers.

Before anyone reading this gets too upset though, please look at this site, and it'll calm all your fears.

From the assassination of Guinea-Bissau's president:

Guinea-Bissau President Joao Bernardo Vieira was assassinated in the first hours of this morning, allegedly in an attack by renegade soldiers as he fled his home. The crime happened a few hours after his long term rival, the country's army chief General Batista Tagme, was killed by a bomb blast, late on Sunday. Although the reasons are still unknnon, the crimes have sparked alarm at instability in the young West African republic...Global Voices

To this past December's coup d etat in Guinea-Conakry:

Guinea's prime minister and some 30 other ministers have submitted to the leaders of a military coup.The government officials met Capt Moussa Dadis Camara, who has declared himself Guinea's new president, at a military base in the capital, Conakry.
The rebels staged the coup on Tuesday, just hours after the death of veteran strongman President Lansana Conte...BBC

...plus in February when MEND guerrillas attacked Equatorial Guinea adding a new twist to African based non-state actors:

Men in speedboats attacked the capital, Malabo, which sits on an island off the West African coastline in the Gulf of Guinea. They struck before dawn on Tuesday and were heavily armed, the government said in a statement, but the army, using boats and a helicopter, quickly repelled the attack.-NYTimes

The common thread is that these actions all occurred in countries on the verge of becoming failing and or failed states. With largely non-existent institutions and an attendant parasitic ruling class.What are the options? Don't expect much from the largely ineffectual African Union. Should we look to a Paul Collier inspired solution of more unilateral military intervention by neighbors or something else?

In the wake of the Umar F. Mutallab terrorist incident, Sahara Reporters Aliyu Tilde eviscerates Nigeria's elite and ruling class :

On contemplation, I think the real reason why we elite are afraid of our newly acquired feather is because of the inconvenience that we will suffer from whenever we visit overseas or the opportunities we will miss in our hideout countries where we send our children to study after celebrating the collapse of our public schools at home; where we take our wives for delivery after we have allowed our hospitals to deteriorate; where we hide the billions we steal daily from public coffers; where some of us think is the Promised Land. Think about it: what restrictive measure would the average Nigerian, who will never have the opportunity to board even a domestic flight be afraid of? Will the airport scanners scan him on his farm? Indeed, we are crying for ourselves, for our interests, not for Nigeria

More here
.

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• Nigerian churches and deforestation (loomnie.com)

Dibussi Tande reviews The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford he
"...has successfully described in the simplest (and most entertaining) terms, the nature of the Cameroonian political system. Political scientists such as Jean Francois Bayart and Michael Bratton have described it as a neopatrimonial and prebendal system, i.e., one that is controlled by a rapacious and unaccountable ruling class that under-develops the country by continuously “eating the state”, and promoting widespread corruption in order to survive..."

The Colonialism-Imperialism Paradigm Is Kaput
George B. N. Ayittey, Ph.D.
June 26, 2005.

Africas paradox is galling: immense mineral wealth yet inexorably mired in steaming squalor, misery, deprivation, and chaos. A few countries have sprinted ahead but Africas overall economic performance remains abysmal, lagging behind those of other regions in the Third World. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has warned that at the prevailing rates black Africa would take another 150 years to reach some of the development targets agreed by UN members for 2015. (Financial Times, July 9, 2003; p.1). Who ruined Africa?

The causes of Africas lack of development have always evoked heated emotional debates. On one hand are those who portray Africa as a victim of powerful external forces and conspiracies a group that may be described as externalists.On the other are those who believe that the causes of Africa's crisis lie mostly within African in the nature of government (governance) or how Africa runs its own affairs. This group may be described as the internalists.

The Externalists

The externalists believe that Africa's woes are due to external factors such as the lingering effects of Western colonialism and imperialism, the pernicious effects of the slave trade, racist conspiracy plots, exploitation by avaricious multinational corporations, an unjust international economic system, inadequate flows of foreign aid, the neo-liberal policies of the World Bank, IMF, and deteriorating terms of trade. Disciples of the externalist creed include most African leaders, scholars, and intellectual radicals. For decades, the externalist position held sway, attributing the causes of almost every African problem to such external factors.

In his book, The Africans, African scholar and historian Professor Ali Mazrui, examining Africas crises, attributed most of Africas woes to Western colonialism and imperialism. "The West harmed Africa's indigenous technological development in a number of ways" (164). Africa's collapsing infrastructure (roads, railways, and utilities) is due to the "shallowness of Western institutions," "the lopsided nature of colonial acculturation" and "the moral contradictions of Western political tutelage" (202). In fact, "the political decay is partly a consequence of colonial institutions without cultural roots in Africa" (199). Therefore, self congratulatory western assertions of contributing to Africa's modernization are shallow: "The West has contributed far
less to Africa than Africa has contributed to the industrial civilization of the West" (164). Decay in law enforcement and mismanagement of funds can be traced to Western colonialism too. "The
pervasive atmosphere in much of the land is one of rust and dust, stagnation and decay, especially within those institutions which were originally bequeathed by the West signal the slow death of an alien civilization" (204) and Africa's rebellion "against westernization
masquerading as modernity" (211). Western institutions are doomed "to grind to a standstill in Africa" or decay. "Where Islam is already established, the decay of western civilization is good for Islam since it helps to neutralize a major threat" (19).

Many African leaders also subscribed to and espoused similar views ascribing the causes of Africa's crises to external factors. In fact, since independence in the sixties, almost every African malaise was alleged to have been caused by the operation or conspiracy of extrinsic agents. This externalist doctrine totally absolved the leadership of any responsibility for the mess in Africa. The leadership was above reproach and could never be faulted. President Mobutu even blamed
corruption on European colonialism. Asked who introduced corruption into Zaire, he retorted: "European businessmen were the ones who said, 'I sell you this thing for $1,000, but $200 will be for your (Swiss bank) account'" (New African, July, 1988, 25).

In his address to the third Congress of the Democratic Union of Malian People recently, President Moussa Traore observed that, The world economy is passing through a period characterized by monetary disorder and slow trade exchanges. The worsening crisis is affecting all countries, particularly developing countries. Due to the difficult situation, which is compounded by the serious drought, socio economic life has been affected by serious imbalances
that have jeopardized our country's development growth. Debt servicing, characterized mainly by state to state debts are a heavy burden on the state budget. The drop in the price of cotton which accounts for much of the country's foreign earnings, has led to a great reduction in export
earnings" (West Africa, 16 May 1988, 876).

President Danial arap Moi accused the IMF and other development partners of denying Kenya development funds, thus triggering mass poverty (The Washington Times, June 3, 1999; p.A12). According to the Chairman of Ghanas ruling NDC, Issifu Ali, whatever economic crisis the nation was going through had been caused by external factors. He said the NDC has since 1982 adopted pragmatic policies for the progress of Ghana, adding that the macro-economic environment of 1999 has been undermined by global economic developments" (The Independent, Nov 18, 1999; p.3). Said the Zimbabwe Independent (April 27, 1999), Mugabe
rejects the criticism of those who blame the government for the economic crisis. It is, he says, the fault of greedy Western powers, the IMF, the Asian financial crisis and the drought (p. 25).

Naturally, African leaders would deny any responsibility and blame everybody else except themselves for the mess in Africa. The New Economic Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) echoes this orthodoxy when it claims that Africas impoverishment has been accentuated by the legacy of colonialism and other historical legacies, such as the Cold War and the unjust international economic system. Colonialism subverted the "traditional structures, institutions and values," creating an economy "subservient to the economic and political
needs of the imperial powers" (para 21). Colonialism, according to NEPAD, retarded the development of an entrepreneurial and middle class with managerial capability. At independence, Africa inherited a "weak capitalist class," which explains the "weak accumulation process, weak states and dysfunctional economies." (para 22). More recent reasons for Africa's dire condition include "its continued marginalization from globalization process." (para 2). NEPAD seeks $64 billion in investments from the West.

Frankly, this colonialism-imperialism card has been so overplayed that it has lost its relevance and credence. Even Africas children dont buy it. Chernoh Bah, president of the Children's Forum asserted that Africa's socio economic problems are a direct repercussion of incompetent and corrupt political leaders who usurped political office via the gun. "Some blame colonialism for Africa' plight while others blame the continent's harsh climatic conditions. I think the reason is the kind of political systems we have had over the past decades, he said. (Standard Times [Freetown], April 2, 2003; web posted). At the United Nations Children's Summit held in May 2002 in New York, youngsters from Africa ripped into their leaders for failing to improve
their education and health. "You get loans that will be paid in 20 to 30 years and we have nothing to pay them with, because when you get the money, you embezzle it, you eat it, said 12-year-old Joseph Tamale from Uganda (BBC News, May 10, 2002).

The Internalists

Internalists are the new and angry generation of Africans, who are fed up with African leaders who refuse to take responsibility for their own failures and, instead use colonialism and other external factors as convenient alibis to conceal their own incompetence and mismanagement.
Internalists believe that, while external factors have played a role, internal factors have been far more significant in causing Africas crisis. This school of thought maintains that while it is true Western colonialism and imperialism did harm Africa and continues to do so, Africa's condition has been made immeasurably worse by such internal factors as misguided leadership, misgovernance, systemic corruption, capital flight, economic mismanagement, declining investment, collapsed infrastructure, decayed institutions, senseless civil wars, political
tyranny, flagrant violations of human rights, and military vandalism. In fact, one can identify a whole lot of them but these will suffice. U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, himself an African, lashed out at African leaders at the Organization of African Unity (OAU) Summit in Lome in July 2000. He pointedly told them that they are to blame for most of the continent's problems. Instead of being exploited for the benefit of the people, Africas mineral resources have been so
mismanaged and plundered that they are now the source of our misery (Daily Graphic, July 12, 2000; p.5). Earlier in the year at a press conference in London in April, 2000, Kofi Annan, lambasted African leaders who he says have subverted democracy and lined their pockets
with public funds, although he stopped short of naming names (The African-American Observer, April 25 May 1, 2000; p.10). During a brief stop-over in Accra, he disclosed in a Joy FM radio station interview that "Africa is the region giving him the biggest headache as the
Security Council spends 60 to 70% of its time on Africa. He admitted sadly that the conflicts on the continent embarrasses and pains him as an African" (The Guide, July 18-24, 2000; p.8).

Ordinary people are speaking out too. Said Akobeng Eric, a Ghanaian, in a letter to the Free Press (29 March - 11 April 1996): "A big obstacle to economic growth in Africa is the tendency to put all blame, failures and shortcomings on outside forces. Progress might have been achieved if we had always tried first to remove the mote in our own eyes" (2). Angry
at deteriorating economic conditions in Ghana, thousands of Ghanaians marched through the streets of the capital city, Accra, the economic crisis is due to external forces and therefore, beyond his control, then he should step aside and allow a competent person who can
manage the crisis to take over," Atta Frimpong demanded (The Ghanaian Chronicle, Nov 29, 1999; p.1). Appiah Dankwah, another protestor blamed the NDC government for mismanaging the resources of the nation.

By the 1990s, African governments had completely lost touch with their people; in fact, they were at war with their people. Citing "the credibility gap between the people and the leadership built up through years of mismanagement," Mr. Mohammed Boudiaf, the head of Algeria's
High Executive Council (HEC), lamented: "A large segment of the population has, I am afraid, lost confidence in the capacity of the leadership to provide jobs, housing, health care and its ability to combat corruption" (Financial Times, June 17, 1992; p. 4). Indeed, said Simon Agbo, a farmer in Ogbadibo, south of Makurdi, Benue state capital in Nigeria: "I heard we have a new government. It makes no difference to me. Here we have no light ( electricity), we have no water. There is no road. We have no school. The government does nothing for us (The
Washington Times, Oct 21, 1999; p.A19).

Rafael Marques, a journalist, jailed and convicted of defamation for a 1999 article in which he characterized President Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola as a dictator, wrote: "The government has created a stateless state here in Angola. Each citizen is responsible for his own health and welfare while the government is accountable to no one. The MPLA and
UNITA are like two gangs and the people of Angola are innocent bystanders caught in the middle of a drive-by shooting" (The Washington Post, Sept 18, 2000; p.A1).

As a result of the failure to provide the basic necessities of life, the state and those in power have increasingly alienated themselves from those they rule and from whom they claim to derive their legitimacy. The growing gap between the leaders and the people has made the leaders increasingly insecure, sensitive, repressive and less responsive to the wishes of society. The mass of the people in turn regard the state and its organs with fear, suspicion and cynicism because as far as they are concerned, they are no longer legitimate or relevant in their lives. The government does nothing for them. Insecure African despots spend inordinate amounts on the military and security forces, subverting other state institutions squelch dissent, prop them up in power, and serve their parochial interests. The masses on the other hand, sensing their
inability to meaningfully influence the policies of the state and the behaviors of those in positions of power, develop apathy and withdraw from participation in the political process for safety reasons.

Government, as an institution that cares about its people and attends to their needs, has ceased to exist in many African countries. What exists is a vampire state, where the government has been hijacked by a phalanx of unrepentant bandits and crooks, who use the machinery of the
state to enrich themselves, their cronies and tribesmen, while excluding everyone else (the politics of exclusion). The richest persons in Africa are heads of state and ministers. Quite often, the chief bandit is the head of state himself.

At an African civic groups meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Nigeria's President, Olusegun Obasanjo, claimed that corrupt African leaders have stolen at least $140 billion (95 billion) from their people in the decades since independence (The London Independent, June 14, 2002. Web
posted at www.independent.co.uk). In August 2004, an African Union report claimed that Africa loses an estimated $148 billion annually to corrupt practices, a figure which represents 25 percent of the continent's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). But these are gross underestimates. According to one UN estimate, $200 billion or 90 percent of the sub-Saharan part of the continent's gross domestic product was shipped to foreign banks in 1991 alone (The New York Times, Feb 4, 1996; p.4). Nigeria's past rulers stole or misused 220 billion ($396 billion) -- that is as much as all the western aid given to Africa in almost four decades. The looting of Africa's most populous country amounted to a sum equivalent to 300 years of British aid for the
continent (The London Telegraph, June 25, 2005; web posted). If this sum had been divided equally among Nigerias 120 million people, its income per capita would be at least $3,000, instead of the miserable $265, which is about the same as it was when it gained its independence in 1960. Between 1970 and 2004, more than $400 billion in oil money
flowed into Nigerian governments coffers. What happened to the oil money?

Eventually the vampire state metastasizes into what Africans call a coconut republic and implodes when politically-excluded groups rise up in rebellion: Somalia (1993), Rwanda (1994), Burundi (1995), Zaire (1996), Sierra Leone (1998), Liberia (1999), Ivory Coast (2000), and
Togo (2005). Only reform intellectual, economic, political and institutional will save Africa but the leadership is not interested. Period.

Ask these leaders to develop their countries and they will develop their pockets. Ask them to seek foreign investment and they will seek a foreign country to invest their booty. Ask them to cut bloated state bureaucracies or government spending and they will set up a Ministry of
Less Government Spending. Ask them to establish better systems of governance and they will set up a Ministry of Good Governance (Tanzania). Ask them to curb corruption and they will set up an Anti-Corruption Commission with no teeth and then sack the Commissioner if he gets too close to the fat cats (Kenya). Ask them to establish democracy and they will empanel a coterie of fawning sycophants to write the electoral rules, hold fraudulent elections with opposition leaders either disqualified or in jail, and return themselves to power (Ivory Coast, Rwanda). Ask them to reduce state hegemony in the economy and place more reliance on the private sector and they will create a Ministry of Private Enterprise (Ghana). Ask them to privatize inefficient state-owned enterprises and they will sell them off at fire-sale prices to their cronies. In 1992, in accordance with World Bank loan conditionalities, the Government of Uganda began a
privatization effort to sell-off 142 of its state-owned enterprises. However, in 1998, the process was halted twice by Ugandas own parliament because, according to the chair of a parliamentary select committee, Tom Omongole, it had been derailed by corruption, implicating three senior ministers who had "political responsibility" (The East African, June 14, 1999). The sale of these 142 enterprises was initially projected to generate 900 billion Ugandan shillings or $500
million. However, by the autumn of 1999 the revenue balance was only 3.7 billion Ushs.

Now, their recalcitrance has transmogrified into extortion. Ask them to move a foot and they will demand foreign aid in order to do so. In 2003, some 30,000 ghost names were discovered on the payroll of the Ministry of Education, costing the government $1.2 million a month in salaries heisted by living workers. When Ghana demanded foreign aid to purge these ghost names, Japan ponied up $5 million.

The reform process has stalled through vexatious chicanery, strong-arm tactics, deception, and vaunted acrobatics. Only 16 out of the 54 African countries are democratic and fewer than 8 African countries can be described as economic success stories. Intellectual freedom remains
in the Stalinist era: only 8 African countries have a free and independent media. But without genuine reform, more African countries will implode -- Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Togo and Zimbabwe are already teetering on the brink

The slave trade, Western colonialism, imperialism and external factors have nothing to do with the naked plunder and wrong choices made by bad African leaders. The World Bank has nothing to do with monumental leadership failure in Africa. The IMF, which most African leaders relish
vilifying, has nothing to do with petrol (gasoline) shortages in Nigeria. Nor do Western agricultural subsidies have anything to do with why African governments cant supply reliable electricity and safe drinking water to their people. The slave trade has nothing to do with
Nigeria turning itself into the scam capital of the world.

The Flaws in the Externalist Position

The issue of Western culpability or complicity in causing Africas woes evokes such intense emotionalism that it often clouds rational analysis of our problems in Africa. Let us strip the issue of its emotionalism and examine it rationally.

Historical Wrongs Committed by the West

The Slave Trade/Colonialism

Everyone agrees that the slave trade was at once a brutally inhumane treatment that can ever be meted out to a people. The horrors of capture, the trans-shipment, the loss of millions of able-bodied men, the atrocities that were committed by European slave traders, etc. are all documented. We all agree to the humiliating experience of colonial subjugation. The discrimination against African natives, the exploitation of Africa's mineral wealth and artifacts, etc. -- we also agree on that.

Remedies

We may seek compensation (reparations) for the harm that slavery did to us. We may seek the return of the stolen booty. Ethiopia has just received its ancient obelisk, stolen by the Italian colonialists. But even here, African leaders have debauched the issue.

Back in August 1999, representatives of African governments met in Accra and issued a declaration: "Africa is demanding $777 trillion from Western Europe and the Americas in reparation for enslaving Africans while colonizing the continent" (Pan African News Agency, August 18, 1999). It added that the money would be demanded from ''all those nations of Western Europe and the Americas and institutions, who participated and benefited from the slave trade and colonialism''. Dr. Hamet Maulana and Debra Kofie, co-chairpersons of the commission, urged that worldwide monitoring and networking systems be instituted to ensure
that reparation and repatriation will be achieved by 2004. Problem is, U.S. GNP is only $12 trillion and amount asked- $777 trillion- exceeds the combined sum of the GNPs of the entire Western world! According to the British governments Office of National Statistics, The United
Kingdom -- that is England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland -- is officially valued at $8.8 trillion, a sum that includes all of its property and buildings, machinery, roads, bridges, planes, trains and automobiles. It also includes all the money deposited in its banks and other financial institutions. Plus everything on the shelves at Harrods (The New York Times, Jan 1, 2004; p.A4). So how do African leaders hope to collect $777 trillion?

We may argue all we want about the size of reparations but these historical wrongs cannot repeat, cannot -- be used to justify the cruel atrocities and grotesque misdeeds African leaders commit against their own people. Winning independence for their respective countries gives no African leader -- none of them -- the license to do what they want with their people and countries.

European slave traders or colonialists did not tell President Mugabe to raze down shanty-towns, destroying the propertied of hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans and rendering more than 1.5 million HOMELESS. American imperialists did not tell President Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia
to order his security forces to open fire on student demonstrators, killing more than 40 of them on June 15, 2005. British racists did not tell President Isaiah Afwerki of Eritrea to shut down all the private newspapers in Eritrea and jail all their editors and journalists.

These leaders must be held ACCOUNTABLE for their actions. Historical wrongs by the West do not factor in here because they are a separate issue and CANNOT be used to excuse wrongful actions taken by African leaders TODAY.

Colonial Legacies

It is also agreed that the colonial legacies bequeathed to Africa were pitiful. What the Portuguese left behind in Guinea-Bissau, after 200 years of colonial rule, was a small brewery for their local servicemen. There was no social development; industry was not encouraged. African colonies were to serve as sources of raw material and cheap labor for the industrial machines of Metropolitan Europe. The colonial economies were based on export mono-culture: the export of one or two cash crops.

Colonial education was geared toward training male clerks for the colonial administration. The Belgians and Portuguese never encouraged university education as that would teach African natives of their political rights. When Tanzania gained its independence in 1964, it had only 4 university graduates.

Infrastructure was Spartan. Few roads and railways were built. Even where built in West Africa, they exhibited a dendritic pattern: Straight from the coast to the hinterland to evacuate some mineral or cash crop.

All this is true but heres the problem: After independence, we, African elites, did not maintain, let alone keep the little infrastructure we inherited from the colonialists. In fact, we destroyed them! Infrastructure crumbled in the post colonial period. The few universities we got in Ghana and Nigeria decayed. In Uganda, Makerere University used to be called the Harvard of Africa in the 1950s. By 1980, it was a shambles. In Zaire, the Belgian colonialists put down only 2,000 miles of paved road appalling for that huge country the size of Texas. By 1990, only 200 miles were usable. So who do you blame: the Belgian colonialists for not laying down enough roads OR Mobutu for failing to maintain the little that Zaire got? Later, we learned that Mobutu allowed the roads and infrastructure to crumble in Zaire because it made it difficult for the opposition to organize against him!
(contd)

On Thursday, my cell phone was all ablaze with text messages about the hearing on DC teacher layoffs. They ranged from "not looking good" to "I wasted my time coming here" to "I shoulda' been job hunting " to "our lawyer's not proving our case" to "we're about to hear closing arguments & the judge will make her decision in  writing next week." This evening WaPo staff reporter, Bill Turque wrote a piece on the DC Wire about what happened in court. For those of us who could not attend, here is it is in its entirety (below). You be the judge of where things stand on the WTU preliminary injunction front.  What's interesting is that the WaPo covered Barbara Bullock's official release from prison in the paper today. I somehow get the feeling that the hearing on DC teacher layoffs will only be reported on the Post's DC Wire blog versus the metro section of the newspaper. Go figure. Whether you attended the Thursday's hearing or not, I'd love to hear your comments . 

This post was halfway written last week before I got bored with it and moved on... but it appears that my point was very relevant. My original point was that Ed Schultz, a liberal and a Democrat who supports Barack Obama, as a small man who wants to use the power of the government to control your life, liberty, and property, and demonstrates his smallness in his thoughts and actions, which are thuggish, racist, and sexist.

Last week, Ed Schultz heard the word 'food stamps,' and immediately pictured a black guy! Schultz, like many liberals and demonstrates, screams racism at everyone because in their hearts, people are divided by color and you can stereotype their personalities based on their color and (to him) the job of government is to protect the weaker/poorer/lesser people in society which (to him) are always people of color. No need for Thuggie Eddie to actually get to know people and judge them based on the quality of their character- nope, instead he sees a black guy and thinks 'food stamps', and vice-versa, whenever he hears 'food stamps' he thinks 'this is code for black people 'cause all black people are the kind of people who are all on food stamps and white people are too good for food stamps so food stamps must mean black people.' Ed Schultz is a racist.

Today I heard that Ed Schultz called a woman radio host a 'slut'. Laura Ingraham, a popular conservative radio host and author, criticized President Barack Obama for taking a trip to Ireland and enjoying a Guinness and taking in the sights and going to fancy parties while the Midwestern United States was being hit by severe weather. She felt that this was yet more evidence that Obama was out of touch with the common man.

Soon after, on his radio program (which I sometimes listen to on 1310AM when I want to hear what bizzaro world sounds like), Ed Schultz said

And what do the Republicans thinking about? They’re not thinking about their next-door neighbor. They’re just thinking about how much this is going to cost. President Obama is going to be visiting Joplin, Mo., on Sunday but you know what they’re talking about, like this right-wing slut, what’s her name?, Laura Ingraham? Yeah, she’s a talk slut. You see, she was, back in the day, praising President Reagan when he was drinking a beer overseas. But now that Obama’s doing it, they’re working him over.

Ed is a great example of liberalism- not even pretending to understand the other side, personally attacking the other side, using offensive language that puts down minorities and women and Jews and anyone outside of the ruling elite white class that he wants to empower, getting everything wrong (Ingraham wasn't even on the radio when Reagan was President), and never even failing to address Ingraham's whole point (that Obama is out of touch with the common man).

Ed Schultz is a liberal and a Democrat and supports Barack Obama and is employed by MSNBC and frequently is invited as a guest to speak at liberal events, and demonstrates through his actions just exactly what a liberal Democrat really is- people who want to use the power of the government to control your life, liberty, and property, and aggressively attack with personal and vulgar actions anyone who does not bow to their thuggish, racist, sexist, anti-Semitic demands. It isn't your father's Democratic party anymore.

Laura's books can be found here- check out The Obama Diaries or Shut Up & Sing: How Elites from Hollywood, Politics, and the UN are Subverting America.

Jennifer Granholm, the Democratic former Governor of Michigan, is exactly right- the United States can learn a lot of lessons from Michigan's government- lessons on what not to do.

Before the Obama years, many looked back at the Bush years and talked about how bad 4% GDP growth and 6% unemployment were, but to be honest, those numbers were never that good in Michigan, which suffered under a single state recession for much of the 2000's and had low GDP growth rates, high unemployment, and bad numbers on everything else. For many years, the people of this great state were told that the reason why Michigan was doing so poorly was George W. Bush's fault- but from 2009 to 2011 Bush was gone and yet Michigan still led the nation in all of the wrong numbers. The reason why Michigan did poorly as a state from 2003 to 2011 was because during this time our state had a progressive Democrat as Governor who put in place the same policies at the state level that have failed so miserably at the national level as well.

Governor Granholm believed that the government should take money from those who are successful and then use that money to pick and choose winners and losers in the marketplace. Her administration decided that what made a company or an industry a 'winner' was not whether or not it was profitable, whether it provided a good that was valued by society highly (as determined by private investment), or whether it was a stable and sound investment. No, under Democratic officials and Granholm, the decision to use the power of government to anoint an industry a 'winner' was made based on political decisions of whether or not that industry or company donated to the Democratic Party, the decision was made based on whether or not the industry or business was deemed 'cool' and 'hip', and whether not the business or industry provided a good or service that the ruling powers liked, whether it was 'green products' or movies.

Using the power of the government to transfer wealth from savers and producers and successful people to those who are spenders and wasters and unsuccessful has a decided effect on an economy, whether at the state level or the national level- it leads to less economic success, more waste, more inefficiency, less jobs, less tax revenue, and a thoroughly lessened society on almost every level. When property is taken and corrupt decisions are made in the government, a state and a nation are not successful.

Michigan showed the entire nation what would happen if those same policies were enacted at the national level- it was a lesson of what not to do. And yet, in spite of this, much like our national leaders that continue to press on in the face of failure, those who inflicted this awful economy on us have no apologies and hold true to their course. President Barack Obama, much like Jennifer Granholm, will not change in any substantive manner and will not alter his policies if he wins a second term.

Jennifer Granholm is coming out with a new book, "A Governor's Story: The Fight for Jobs and America's Economic Future," and in it she gives our great nation of how not to run a state or government or anything at all.

As is typical in a government which inserts itself into the marketplace and plays political games with citizens, the book talks about all of the political gamesmanship and behind-the-scenes deal-making and continual crisis that marked the Granholm years in Michigan. The book argues that government involvement — tax payer money given away in the name of green jobs and pork programs — is essential to economic growth, in spite of the track record that that philosophy has had whenever and wherever it has been tried. They attempt to argue that because another government has (the Obama administration) has awarded tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money borrowed on credit from China as loans to various industries in Michigan over the last couple of years, this is some sort of an indication of success for their method.

Granholm says "Smart and active government is really what's needed"- as if a small elite class of unconnected politicians working in a capital will be smarter than the thousands of decisions that free citizens make every day in a free market, and as if a more active government will not crowd out investment and decisions freely made by businessman and force them into making unwise and bad investments.

"If you place no bets, you will lose every time," she said, suggesting that the government should use its extreme lack of information about the market and rely on its lack of personal investment in the situation to gamble away taxpayer money at every political or 'cool' industry or company that comes along. Oh, a couple of those bets will win- even a Democrat finds his way out of a recession every now and then- but on the whole, taxpayers will take it on the chin many more times than not, and Granholm and her cronies will walk away with pensions, paychecks, a nice university position, and a new book.

United States, be prepared- Michigan has shown the nation the way, and don't ever forget- Granholm won a second term of office after her disastrous first term saw her destroy Michigan's economy and ruin many lives.

Detroit News provided quotes and source information.

Via The Daily Caller:

Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty turned out a blockbuster economic growth plan this past week, including deep cuts in taxes, spending, and regulations. It’s really the first Reaganesque supply-side growth plan from any of the GOP presidential contenders. And he caps it all off with a defense of optimism as he charges ahead with a national economic growth goal of 5 percent.

That’s right: 5 percent.

Pawlenty calls this target aspirational. Okay, fine. But deeper down, he’s basically saying no to the declinists and pessimists who seem to populate the economic landscape these days. Big government doesn’t work. Let’s try something different.

Ronald Reagan always believed that America is exceptional. By removing obstacles to growth, the Gipper held that economic policies could unleash a massive outpouring of risk-taking, creativity, and entrepreneurship. He was right, and his policies launched a two-decade-long boom.

Actually, the first couple years of the Reagan recovery came in at over 7 percent. And as Pawlenty noted in his speech at the University of Chicago this week, between 1983 and 1987, the economy grew at 4.9 percent annually. I note that President John F. Kennedy also had a 5 percent growth target, a response to Ike’s three recessions.

...those on the left criticize Pawlenty...

Whether Pawlenty's goal is realistic or not is not the point- rather it is the Democratic liberal establishment's response to it. Rather than hope and change and pushing back the tide and restoring America's prosperity and believing in and pushing for and working for jobs and a great economy, liberals and Democrats, whether they are in Congress or in the White House or in the media, now simply laugh at and scoff and ridicule anyone who believes such things.

IS THIS WHAT YOU VOTED FOR? A party that's first and biggest and lasting impression of someone saying that our economy can grow again is to laugh, scoff, deny, and offer reason after reason why you won't get a job, why you won't get a raise, why your children will owe more in debts, why America will get weaker, etc- the new normal of Obama and the Democrats will be a lesser nation, one that you better get used to and expect won't improve.

The very possibility that America could rise again after the destruction that the Democrats and Obama has driven into the very foundations of America inspired the White House to reply:

With regards to 5 percent growth, we couldn’t agree more; that would be very beneficial to the economy. We think providing expansive tax cuts to the wealthy — which we did in the last term and added tremendously to our debt and resulted in this President inheriting a massive deficit and debt in 2009 — probably not the best approach.

This comment filled with snark and sarcasm and divisiveness and bitterness is what we all can now expect from Obama and an Executive Branch controlled by the Democrats. He didn't say 'That's great, how can we work together and find common ground to achieve not only 5% growth but 6% growth', but rather the reply was mocking, empty rhetoric on class warfare, and transferring blame.

Firedoglake, which Obama reads and quotes from and believes in, called Pawlenty's plan a "Unicorn and Pony Economic Plan", and suggested that it is now a 'fantasy' for America to grow again at 5% and that merely suggesting that America can be a prosperous, free, and strong nation is ridiculous.

Michael Ettlinger of the liberal Center for American Progress said, "It's patently ridiculous... it's not worth serious discussion. ... No one serious thinks that's possible."

This quote illustrates the difference between the right (conservatives, tea partiers, libertarians, moderates) and the left (liberals, communists, socialists, fascists)- the right still thinks that unleashing human liberty and freedom through private property protection, limited government, rule of law, and a love of human life will lead our nation to high GDP growth rates, and the left does not. The left believes that it is no longer even possible for America to grow, and that the ruling classes need to lock in social and economic classes through regulation, government control, and excessive taxes so that the rich can grow richer and the poor can grow poorer.

It is shocking that Obama and the Democrats believe that it isn't even possible for the United States to have a 5% GDP growth rate. According to the CIA, many nations grew faster than 5% last year- Qatar grew at 16.272%, Paraguay at 15.270, Singapore at 14.471, India at 10.365, Turkmenistan at 9.222, Argentina at 9.161, Peru at 8.795, Botswana at 8.562, Nigeria at 8.394, Sweden at 5.536, or Mexico at 5.518.

In fact, out of 184 nations listed, 68 of them grew at a rate of 5% or faster last year- and yet Obama and the Democrats think that this is impossible for the United States to do, and they believe that we've turned it around and that Americans should be happy with a growth rate of 2.834% for 2009, which makes our nation the 117th fastest growing economy in the age of Obama.

Our economy that Obama and his liberal Democrat allies thinks it is impossible and silly and just wrong for our economy to grow faster than 5%, and their policies are doing just this- high taxes, high fees, increased regulation, increased government control over society, more bureaucrats, breaking the rule of law, excessive environmental regulations, rhetorical attacks on business and investment and success and industry, policies that attack our energy industry, policies that break the law white hindering our nuclear industry, and massive stimulus and spending bills that mis-allocate resources.

Republicans offer an alternative- they still believe in America, they still believe in the dream of a growing economy, and they still think that 5% growth rate is possible. Vote for them next election.